


The Awakening

by AlwaysawaywiththeFairies



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: F/M, Modern Day, Steggy - Freeform, Steggy Week 2020, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-21
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:34:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25432447
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AlwaysawaywiththeFairies/pseuds/AlwaysawaywiththeFairies
Summary: Peggy Carter wakes up from a coma in the 21st century. I'm very aware at no point in time in the films did the Avengers and Bucky live in the Avengers Compound the way they do in my fic, but that's what AUs are for.Was supposed to be a one-shot, but the story insisted on making itself longer. Oops.
Relationships: Peggy Carter/Steve Rogers
Comments: 22
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

Tony is glad Peggy’s awakening takes place during the very brief daily period in which Cap leaves her bedside for a quick shower. You couldn’t fault the man for wanting to be there, but coming out of a coma to find yourself 80 years into the future AND the love that you thought long dead holding your hand is a bit much for anyone to take, even for Peggy Carter. Besides, they needed to run tests and to see if she has any information at all on how she had jumped in time. Having had Steve Rogers in the same room the moment she opened her eyes would have hardly been of help.

Her vitals are so-so at best, which is not completely unusual after two whole weeks in an ICU bed, and there is a dizziness to her when she finally understands the fact that she is indeed in the 21st century. When Steve opens the door to the guard in the hospital Tony has improvised in the Avengers Compound, it takes four grown-ass men and a stern talking from both Natasha and Bucky to make him wait for the doctors to finish the tests. Bucky feels a bit of a traitorous rat, the way Steve looks at him when they inform him it has been decided it’s better for Peggy if they lead with the smaller shock – Bucky being alive and there – before they deliver the big news about Steve. He paces the small room until Natasha wants to punch him in the face – it doesn’t really take that long - and she’s about to tell him to sit the fuck down when he seems to stop and stare at his reflection on the window for a second and rushes upstairs mumbling something about needing a minute at home.

\- _“What the hell was that?”_

Bucky grins.

\- _“He needs to shave,”_ he shrugs.

\- _“50 bucks he won’t. He worships that beard.”_

Bucky thinks it’s funny how Steve has been here for so long and even Natasha doesn’t really know this side of him.

\- _“Beards weren’t exactly all the range back in the 40s”_ , he offers his good hand to shake hers, _“but I’ll take those 50 and put them to good use, Romanoff.”_

His best attempt at not looking like a smug bastard does not fare well when Steve opens the door less than 10 minutes later, clean-shaven, his hair having received more attention than in the previous 12 years. He locks eyes with her, nods towards Steve and mouths _"wants to look pretty for her."_ Romanoff rolls her eyes at them both and produces the money. Good. Shuri has been pestering him about this new videogame for the last week, and he’d like to not suck too much at it when he sets foot again in Wakanda and she inevitably puts a controller in his hands.

It takes Peggy a few anecdotes only one of the Howling Commandos would know to believe the man she has in front of her is Sergeant Barnes himself, and it truly breaks his heart when she starts crying. Sometimes he forgets there were people out there mourning for him, missing him. In between sobs he hears that if they had known, they would have never, NEVER, left him behind. It’s a long, long hug. It feels like hugging Dum Dum, and Morita, and Jones, and Pinkie, and his mother and sister, and every single one of the people he cared for in the 40s. When she calms down and they start talking, conversation flows but, as tempting as a long chat is, he’d like to give Steve a chance to talk to her before Natasha murders him out of sheer desperation for him to stop fidgeting.


	2. Chapter 2

Tony gets it. He didn’t use to in the past, before seeing them together, but he genuinely does now. It is precisely because he gets it that he does his best to get Cap to leave, even for a morning, that bubble they’ve created between the two of them. He doesn’t know how he’ll deal with it if they find the why and the how, and they have to send Peggy back to the 40s while he stays in the 21st century.

He’s tried asking him to have a look at the new equipment ( _“Sam is better at that stuff than I am”_ ), using his control-freak streak to suggest he could re-write the security protocols for the team in natural disaster situations ( _“Nat has more experience in that field”_ ) and even buttering him up with how important it would be for the Avengers if Cap himself travelled to the UN headquarters to accept the official recognition they’ve been given ( _“You are the charismatic one, Tony, the one people actually want to see_ ”, he shrugged.) Tony had plenty more ideas, but unfortunately before he opened his mouth for the next one (great one, too, visiting children in hospital… they had requested Spiderman, but Steve didn’t need to know that), Cap interrupted him to ask for a few weeks of unpaid leave.

After yet another blood sample and another set of questions about her last memories of the 40s that get Tony nowhere, he delivers a laptop and a tablet on Cap's lap. _"If you're going to be on **paid** leave holding the living proof of time travel's hand, it wouldn't hurt for you to at least give her an introduction to modern technology." _From that moment on, they spend all day long sitting so close together you couldn’t fit a feather between them. 

The first evening he leaves them like that, watching a movie (Cap had chosen, against all the suggestions he had been given, _Monty Python’s Life of Brian_ and, according to Peggy’s cackling, it was the right call), and he can’t help but tease him in the morning, when he enters the guard to find him not on the sofa, as usual, but sleeping on top of the covers right next to her. Cap is barely out of the door, red ears and all, when Peggy begins her scolding:

- _“Mr. Stark, I don’t know about now, but those remarks are completely inappropriate where I come from.”_

- _“What about a man and a woman who are not married, sleeping together? Was that appropriate where you come from, or…?”_

\- _“Steve wasn’t sleeping **with** me, he was sleeping **next to** me. If you don’t know the difference between those two, Miss Potts is a very unfortunate woman.”_

Pepper had the decency to at least try to hide the chuckle behind her clipboard.

It was their thing during the war, Peggy supposed. It was reasonably safe, and could easily be done when it was just the commandos, which was more often than not. Steve and her would sit very close together – Dum Dum had a field day the first five times or so, but gave up after finding himself on the wrong end of Peggy’s sharp tongue – and carefully draw, unnoticed by the rest, on each other’s leg or lower back one of the symbols of the language they had made up together.

M meant _“I’ve missed you so much”_

L was for _“I love you”_. That one had never been officially agreed on; Steve just used it one cold Austrian morning under a blanket, while Peggy was recovering from a fever, and she didn't exactly struggle to understand his meaning. 

They had signs to communicate where and when to meet for a healthy dose of snogging away from curious eyes, to compliment each other’s appearance, to show concern, or support, or longing. But Steve’s favorite had to be one Peggy had come up with and meant _“I can’t wait to be alone with you.”_ She had explained it as “a basic drawing of a tent”, and, when Steve asked for specifics – if they were going to be sending each other erotic messages under the table in front of everyone, he might as well get them right -, she had taken his precious sketchbook and proceeded to draw an uneven triangle. He had howled with laughter, and she had indignantly protested that, in this particular case, it was the sentiment and not the quality of the art that counted, but she wouldn’t be saying those things to him again if he found them so incredibly laughable. He had kissed her until Bucky came to get them, mumbling it was unbelievable they could still feel their tongues.

She is in his arms, still in shock from finding him in this strange future, alive and well and slightly different but uncannily similar to the Steve she once knew, when she feels him signing an M in her back. There are a few signs back and forth during the day, most of them not really all that significant. She signs _“you’re lovely”_ just above his left elbow while he tells her he has chosen a British film, and can feel something stirring inside mid-film when his index finger goes for a _“you look beautiful”_ on her right hip. When the credits roll and she can see in his face how truly exhausted he is after these weeks waiting for her to wake up, she tries to be as subtle as possible, knowing it feels like they are alone, but with that AI thing and the intelligent machines she is hooked to they really are not.

\- _“Would it bother anyone if you slept here instead of on the sofa? For all the money the Starks throw on furniture, it seems they never find anything to sit on that looks remotely comfortable.”_

- _“Nobody”_ , he whispers, _“for you… is there…”_

Peggy has never thought of herself as particularly forward in romantic matters, but her hand is on his chest, shaping the most trembling, worst-drawn triangle she could possibly manage before he even finishes his question.


	3. Chapter 3

Tony is stuck. Not that he would admit it in front of anyone, but days go by and there are no advances. He is no closer to knowing how and why Peggy Carter has ended up in the 21st century and, even worse, the effects of time travel on her body are showing no signs of improvement. They are far from life-threatening, but a healthy woman who is not even 30 should not be breathing heavily after walking the corridor from one end to another twice. Tony knows it, Bruce knows it, Peggy knows it, and Cap’s crestfallen look when the thinks nobody is watching says it all.

Barnes is more of a reclusive soul than most in the compound and he rarely looks for Tony’s company, but he does find him this time.

 _\- “When you say we could ask Wakanda for help, you mean…?”_ , Tony asks, knowing full well the answer. He wants to hear it, anyway.

 _\- “Shuri,_ ” Bucky states.

_\- “We don’t even know if she would be interested in helping us, or if they could spare their leading technology expert for however long this takes.”_

Bucky doesn’t miss a beat.

_\- “They can. She will.”_

_\- “Barnes, are you passing sensitive information to Wakanda? The last thing the Avengers need is having to explain to the government that we found a time traveler and allowed foreign interference before even telling them.”_

Bucky squares his shoulders.

_\- "I’m American born and raised, but I’m also a citizen of Wakanda, the country that gave me back my freedom and control over my mind and body. I’m afraid I **am** foreign interference.”_

Tony can’t blame the man for thinking that girl has the key to all the problems on earth and beyond, so he sighs and says he’ll consider it. Barnes seems mostly satisfied. He nods and starts walking away. He’s almost at the door when he pauses mid-stride to add:

_\- “The princess will land in New York on Thursday evening. She’ll be ready to meet Peggy on Friday morning.”_

Of course, Tony thinks. Of fucking course. Barnes' offering of help was more a formality than a question. 

The following morning, Pepper, ever efficient, has managed to shoo Cap away from Peggy’s room with talk of products of feminine hygiene. When the poor mortified thing is gone, Pepper takes the tablet he and Peggy have been using and smiles while typing something on it.

_\- “I’m sorry to say you won’t find that big a difference in those products, but I think you’re done wearing pajamas, and if you’re going to get modern clothing, I figured out you would be more comfortable choosing your underwear alone.”_

Peggy soon finds out that knickers nowadays are tiny, and brassieres are completely scandalous, and colorful, and fabulous, and Pepper is absolutely right in thinking she’s glad Steve’s not with her while she chooses them. She wants to see his face when he sees them on her.

Bucky enters her room exactly at 11:15 am, as they've been doing the last couple of days, checkers board in hand to keep Peggy company while Steve goes for a quick run and showers. He finds no trace of Steve, but a distressed Peggy, staring at a clothing website on the screen, making a face he can only describe as annoyed pouting. 

_\- “Pepper has asked me to make a list of what I want and give it to her when she returns after her lunch break. I know this is trivial, but I don’t understand how these clothes go together or what impression they give. And… I want to look nice, and I want to look strong and healthy and I don’t want to look old-fashioned, and”_ , she takes a deep breath, and lowers her voice _“I don’t want to look ridiculous.”_

_\- “I once saw you on the field with mud on your hair and Morita’s pants on because yours had been ripped to pieces and you were using one of Steve’s shoelaces as a belt, and you were not even in the vicinity of ridiculous. I’m pretty sure you can pull off jeans.”_

Peggy enjoys Bucky's company enormously. He doesn't ask too many questions, doesn't try to convince her that she's getting better when she obviously isn't, and she likes listening to him go on about the people in his life in this future she still can't believe she's in. She has met most of them and has her own impressions, and Steve also talks about them, but he does it in a more emotional fashion, rambling and jumping from one story to another, which sometimes confuses her. Bucky is more of an aseptic, straight -to-the-point talker, painting her a sketch of everyone's character in a few sentences. Except when he talks about Wakanda. He gets bright-eyed, and Peggy squeezes his good hand softly and when he looks back at her, she realises she had almost forgotten what a kind soul Sergeant Barnes was when you got to know him. He tells her Natasha likes her ( _"believe me, you would know it if she disliked you"_ ) but is wary of how this could affect Steve, and Sam means well even though he's not very good at striking conversation with her, and that Tony is just worried and stressed because he doesn't like mysteries he struggles to figure out, but he's doing everything he can. 

* * *

Steve has taken his task of introducing her to technology very seriously. She has apparently gratuated from basic tablet use (she's not sure how or why because all she has managed to do is play music and films on it, but Steve is really excited, so why not) to laptop computers. This search engine thing he's showing her seems particularly useful. The SSR could have benefited from something like that. 

_\- “And you can type whatever you want to ask, and it will give you the answer,”_ Steve states, proudly. He looks a bit like he did that time in Camp Leigh he got that old flag down, and she wants to kiss him as bad as she wanted to back then. 

_\- “Everything? I can search for anything at all?”,_ she raises an eyebrow. 

_\- “Yes.”_

_\- “Uh-huh.”_

_\- “Just look,”_ Steve surrounds her with his arms to type using the computer on her lap. Peggy can feel his chest pressing against her back and for a bit she can think of nothing but how she misses forgotten corners in basements and army warehouses with no doctors and no cameras and no stupid AI things nearby, and the way she could feel, even in the darkness, how Steve blushed every time he put his hand up her skirt. Not that it stopped him. He still does it, flushing to his neck and beyond, when he whispers the things he's been whispering in her ear at night since she drew a trembling triangle on his chest.

He types “funny cat pictures” on the search engine and Peggy doesn’t know if she’s more amused at the photos or at Steve’s delight in seeing them.

 _-“You try,"_ he offers.

_\- “Anything at all?”_

_\- “Anything.”_

_\- “I think there's something I might want to search specifically", she hums._

Steve is lost for a moment in the beauty of her face when he notices she looks happy. Too happy. Ready-to-clean-everyone’s-pockets-at-poker happy. She types “Captain America naughty pictures” in the search bar and ohs and ahs while scrolling through way too many fanart works. She turns around to him, wicked eyes, biting the tip of her tongue.

_\- “Is that Barnes with you in the drawing?”_


	4. Chapter 4

Peggy often asks them both the same thing. Not to catch them in a lie or anything like that, but because it gives her a more nuanced picture of the reality she has accidentaly landed herself into. Sometimes it's silly things, sometimes it's an issue that has been eating her from the inside since waking up. Now she knows that Bucky likes the many flavours of icecream you can find in 21st century New York best of all, and Steve is on a personal quest to try take away from as many different world cuisines as possible. He doesn't really draw all that much anymore, and when he does he needs quiet music in the background... too much noise without it. Bucky can't have coffee because his metabolism just goes on alert mode and can keep him up for days. Apparently there is a thing called Tinder which you can have on your phone to find someone to have casual intercourse with (Barnes takes special delight in trying to scandalize her with that) because that's normal now and, shockingly enough, Steve winces when she asks and admits to having done that occassionally - the casual thing, not the Tinder thing, he finds it ridiculous to decide who you like through a screen. They both hate shopping for clothes now because there are way too many options. Bucky loves anything touchscreen or commanded by voice and Steve cannot understand what in the world is wrong with just using keyboards, he finds them really practical, thank you very much. Last night, in the dark, noses almost touching, she asked Steve what he missed most from the 40s. 

- _"I guess it used to be Bucky and you, so nothing?"_ , he whispered sleepily.

\- _"Nothing?,"_ she pursed her lips.

- _"Plenty of things, I suppose, but I can go without, used to it by now... but you, Peg... ",_ he says, burying his face in her hair. This is as far as they dare go as long as she has a million machines hooked to her, seeing the one time they tried kissing, well after everyone had gone to sleep, her heart had betrayed her, pounding like crazy, resulting in a bloody alarm going off on one of the machines, blinding lights suddenly on, that AI thing meddling, and Tony, Doctor Banner and Natasha rushing to the guard in their pijamas (Natasha rather hot on Banner's heels, she noted... she hand't seen that one coming) what felt like seconds later. She claimed she had had a nightmare, partly because it really was nobody's business what Steve and herself were doing, but mostly because it wouldn't help her case to admit her heartbeat could go insane with so little stimulous. When they left, Steve looked paler than the time Morita opened the wrong tent after his watch and the following day they woke up to 12 profilactics nicely stacked inside Steve's boots and six poker-faced Commandos talking about the weather.

In the morning, Bucky takes a while before responding.

\- _"Don't know if you could call it missing something, but I wish I had gone to my mother's funeral"_ , he swallows, _"wouldn't have made a difference, but I can't help it bothering me. Is it stupid?"_ he stares at her from the corner of his eye.

\- _"I don't think it is. I do stop to think about it sometimes, that everyone I knew except for you two is gone. That my mother isn't... that she is..."_ , Peggy bites her lower lip, unable to even articulate it yet.

They are both quiet for a minute or two, when Barnes breaks the silence.

- _"Jones."_

\- _"Pardon?"_

\- _"Of all the Commandos, Steve and present company excluded, I miss Jones most,"_ he says, the beginning of a smile on his face, _"god knows the fucker would teach you just the wrongest, worst thing to possibly say to try and pick up a French girl at a bar just to laugh on your face when she slapped you, but he was the best guy to have next to you when on watch at 3 in the morning in the middle of nowhere. We became good friends, Gabe Jones and I, and I don't think I even realised at the time,"_ he shrugs, _"so, yeah, I miss Jones."_

It's a not a good day. Peggy is exhausted, she hasn't slept all that much, she can't make herself feel more optimistic about her non-existant recovery, and she just ruined the mood halfway through their daily checkers game. Sharon stops by, smiling nervously, and Bucky leaves so that they can have a chat. She hasn't had much time to visit, since she was closing a highly confidential deal in LA when Peggy was found, and she's in the middle of moving in with her boyfriend ( _"he's a computer system analyst, thanks the lord, because I need at least one of us to have a boring job to keep my inner peace, and I'm not a quitter, so."_ ) She beams when she talks about him and something in her smile reminds her of Angie. Peggy can see why Steve wanted it to be her. She hands her a tin of chocolates.

\- _"Cadbury Roses. They were our favourites when I was little and we would always buy one tin for each other on our birthdays..."_ Peggy must have looked suprised, because Sharon rushes to add _"sorry, is this too much? It's weird, isn't it? I know you, but not you, YOU, and you don't know me at all and here I am, throwing at you family traditions from 40 years into your future... or 30 into the past if you look at it from now, I guess?"_

- _"Oh, darling, it's a lovely gesture from you. And I trust nothing if not my taste in chocolate, even if that was not me, ME. Besides, I'll be lucky if I get to eat half of them, Steve won't be able to help himself."_

Sharon raises an eyebrow slightly.

- _"About that, Peggy... I just wanted you to know that it was... that it wasn't..."_ she shakes her head.

\- _"Oh, you don't have to... At all... You don't need to..."_

Sharon giggles, breaking the tension of the moment.

- _"Wow, two Carter women and none of us can string a sentence together... that's a first."_ She takes a deep breath. _"I know I don't have to, but I'd lie if I said I wouldn't be curious if I were in your shoes. He's a good man, he's a very good man..."_

- _"Easy on the eye, too",_ Peggy jokes.

- _"Not bad to look at, yes. And I really wanted to be in love with him because it's difficult to find a really good man to fall in love with here in the 21st century."_

\- _"I don't think it has as much to do with time as it does with men themselves,"_ Peggy offers candidly, getting a smile from Sharon.

- _"Anyway, it was a kiss, and I don't think it was exactly earth-shattering for any of us. So, that was that. I just really wanted to get it out even if... even though... Ugh, here I go again, I blame the going from one time zone to the other."_

Peggy pats her hand and opens her tin of chocolates, offering her niece. 

\- _"We might as well get started on them."_

She waits until Sharon is chewing to ask for cartoon recommendations. She chokes a little with laughter before asking why.

\- _"I'm not allowed to watch the news, or anything remotely realistic or that mentions anything important that has happened in the last 70 years anywhere in the world because, and I quote, it's bad enough what I already know about the future in case they have to send me back. I cannot believe that I'm allowing a CHILD OF HOWARD STARK to order me around. What is left is mostly that science-fiction thing that honestly looks a lot like this world of yours to me, or fantasy, which I don't like all that much, or cartoons. I'll go with cartoons."_

Sharon doesn't leave until she's satisfied with the list she makes of the ones the Peggy in her life and herself used to watch when she was a little girl.

It's difficult to follow Aladdin with Steve drawing signs on her leg for "I love you", and "I want you", and "I can't stop thinking about you." When Banner packs up for the day, looking very much exhausted and not at all satisfied with all the test results he's been comparing and analysing, Steve scoots even closer, and Peggy has to wonder if it is possible at all that he smells better and more inviting every day that goes by. 

\- _"I would hardly be complaining if you decided to spend the night under the covers for once,"_ she whispers in his ear and feels him shivering, _"we'll be good, we'll do nothing."_

\- _"You and I"_ , he says softly, smirk on his face, _"have never gone under the covers together and done NOTHING. I'd rather not risk another alarm going off and giving half of the Avengers Tower a show. I have a reputation as a prude to mantain"_

* * *

Shuri arrives at an absolutely ridiculous time. Perfectly reasonable if you're flying from Wakanda, according to the princess herself.

  
\- _“Is this why you left Wakanda, White Wolf? To drive people around?”,_ she accuses him.

\- _"Not normally, but I couldn't say no to the Queen Mother's request, seeing you're arriving to New York City in the middle of the night, dora milaje-less. I won't have you giving poor Okoye a heart attack."_

She jumps to his arms to hug him without warning and he notices the daggers coming from the pilot's eyes at the breach of protocol. 

\- _"I'm so glad to see you again, Bucky."_

She starts the interrogation about Peggy the moment she sits in the car and she challenges him when he starts sounding slightly pesimistic.

\- _"It's just... It feels like Stark can't seem to find a way to help her. He doesn't say it, but he's going around in circles, Banner doesn't look like he's doing much better."_

_\- "Well, Tony Stark didn't seem to think there was a way to help YOU, but I made it happen, didn't I? So it's good that you have someone even better than Tony Stark. Also I want a cheeseburger and pancakes."_

\- _"Now?"_

- _"This brain of mine is high maintenace, you know that. It needs fuel. Isn't New York City the city that never sleeps? I recall you boasting about that back home. Cheeseburger. Pancakes. And a detailed account of everything that you think might be important. We'll start there."_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one has taken a while and I guess not all that much happens, but I needed it before moving further on. Hope you liked it.


	5. Chapter 5

Growing up, Steve had a concept of love and romance that was, in hindsight, not very realistic to say the least. In his mind, he would meet a lovely lady, and go dancing with her, and take her on dates to Coney Island, and kiss her loads (he somehow knew, even in his inexperience, that kissing was a thing that he was really going to be into), and marry her and _after that_ he would want to make love to her, and hopefully she would want the same, and it would feel really good. What a punch to the gut it was to fall in love with Peggy and almost instantly get in his stomach this knot made of love, and passion, and all the insecurities he had ever had in his life all at once, and such an inordinate amount of physical want that he didn't know what to do with himself. He remembers thinking if that was how mutual attraction felt like, it was a wonder Bucky had managed to get anything done at all since the age of fifteen. 

When Peggy was first found, he couldn't sleep for two hours in a row. He kept opening his eyes and making sure that she was there, and she was breathing, and she was Peggy. Then she woke up, and all his instincts kept telling him to protect her at all costs, to care for her and defend her, he didn't even know from whom or from what. Shockingly soon he surprised himself, somewhere in the back of his mind, worrying about looking good for her. Natasha noticed, of course she did, and gave him a couple of pointed looks, and shook her head, and the next time he went to his apartment for a shower and a change of clothes, he found a few nice shirts and a note from her: "heard you're into button-ups lately, made sure they were your brand of boring." It wasn't exactly enthusiastic approval, but it was support, and he could use some of that. The thing is, behind all the worry, all the hope, all the inner conflict, there is the knowledge that she is Peggy, and she still smiles like Peggy, smells like Peggy, feels like Peggy, sounds like Peggy, and every cell of his body reacts to her exactly the way it did so many decades ago. Much in the same way that Steve didn't realise how bad his asthma had been until Project Rebirth gave him perfectly functioning lungs, it truly doesn't hit him how much he's just gone through the motions in his daily life instead of actually living it until she's by his side in that hospital bed, giving him a sultry look first thing in the morning, and he feels the melting of the last piece of ice he never knew he still had in him. 

* * *

\- _"So your theory is that this woman whose mystery time-travelling illness remains unsolved despite all the efforts of some of America's brightest could be cured by your best friend's dick? Wow, Bucky. Wow."_

Shuri can be impossible when she wants to. 

\- _"That's not what I said."_

\- _"No?"_

\- _"You know that perfectly well. I'm just saying she hates it in that hospital bed, and she is in distress because she feels constantly scrutinized, and there is no sign she has something life-threatening. She could do with some walking outside instead of that shitty corridor, and with sleeping in a normal bedroom with actual walls instead of a two way mirror, and no monitors hooked to her arm. And you know at the slightest change or problem in her vitals, Steve would get help in seconds. I don't know about America's brightest, but I recall Wakanda's brightest explaning me about how stress and generally negative emotions can compromise brain function, and brain function compromises absolutely everything going on in our bodies,"_ he shrugs.

Shuri purses her lips.

\- _"I'm not promising anything."_

She slurps her way through the last of her milkshake, staring at him intently, grinning when she finishes. Once, two years ago, she did it by accident in the middle of a game of Mario Kart and a pointed _"manners!"_ that sounded just like his mother scolding his younger self left Bucky's lips before his brain could process that he was talking to royalty. She guffawed with delight and made a point to always slurp the last of her drinks while staring at him when it's just the two of them, like daring him to say something. She thinks she's hilarious like that.

She's Bucky's favourite 21st century person. 

* * *

Peggy doesn't want to get her hopes up, but it's difficult not to when Barnes beams like things will be alright in a question of minutes and Steve's face is all relief at the sight of the young Wakandan woman who is apparently their best bet. She speaks incredibly fast about things that are beyond Peggy's understanding of modern technology and presents a test that involves a deck of cards and sensors to all of their heads. She can apparently track brain activity, and wants to do so while they are playing a game of poker, which will make them focus on a task. Peggy understands why she would want to analyse her brain, but not why also the others.

\- _"I need other results from people doing the same thing at the same time in the same situation to see how what is going on in your brain compares to others. Steve's brain works faster than a normal one, so the graphics should show something different to everyone else's, Bucky's brain is the one I know more in depth, so anything that is similar or different to yours might be of help and give me extra data, and mine, while extraordinary if I may say so, should be the closest match to yours. If there's something remarkably different between them, it will show in the comparison."_

Peggy is not quite sure exactly how this will help, but at least it's more entertaining than any test Tony or poor Doctor Banner have come up with. Bucky has told her Shuri used video games to help him gain complete control and perfect coordination over the arm she built for him and it's not as if they don't sound fun, but she is glad her experiment involves a type of game she is familiar with. 

They've been playing for a while when Shuri glares at them.

- _"I don't know how, but I know you three are cheating."_

\- _"Us?"_ Barnes looks so damned hurt and innocent Peggy would almost believe him if she didn't know any better, _"are you accusing three Wold War veterans of cheating? A disabled man, an elderly man, and a confused lady who doesn't even know how she ended up in her hospital bed? Harsh. Sounds like a sore loser to me. Wow, Shuri. Wow."_

Shuri laughs, and leaves her chair to start having a look at results, jokes about bullshitting areas of the brain lighting up, and mumbles about kicking Barnes' ass at something Peggy doesn't recognise. 

After tapping on a screen for a while to get the exact algorithm she needs, she leaves it running and proceeds to join them three. Shuri stirs the conversation towards the 40s, the war, and Howard Stark. Genious she might be, but Peggy doesn't think she would make a great spy. Peggy is not sure if she means to check that the rest of her memories are intact even though she can't remember exactly how, or when, or from where she has jumped into the future, or if her goal is to find if there is something there, anything, that is key information nobody has noticed yet. It's easier than with Tony. She doesn't press her about the details of the last days she can remember, she moves from questions about the technology they would use at the SSR in her time, to asking about anecdotes with the Commandos, with Bucky and Steve adding their two cents, to inquiring about what young people would do for fun in the 40s, and back again to Howard and his inventions. She's easy to talk to, even if Peggy knows it's not as much regular conversation as it is a quest for whatever information she needs. She has Steve's absolute trust, so she has hers as well. 

If the princess of Wakanda has already figured something out from Peggy's answers or the brain activity data, she doesn't say. She does suggest casually (very casually, but with the tone of a person who is not very much used to people contradicting her) that it would do Peggy well to walk outside in the gardens instead of back and forth in the corridors of the compound. Tony must have heard through the goddamned AI thing and he is there awfully fast, having to be convinced it's not dangerous because Steve will be by her side, there are places to sit if she exhausts herself, the doctors will be less than a minute from her at any time and (this is the reason that gets Tony's acceptance and makes Peggy's stomach drop a notch) there are security cameras everywhere and there is not a chance something could happen to her that they wouldn't notice. He means well, god, he does. And he must have loved his godmother, the Peggy in his life, so very much to be this concerned about her wellbeing, but it's slightly underwhelming to know her every move can still be monitored when outside. Peggy had expected more freedom and less gadgets following everyone around in the future. 

Steve is so excited, though, she can feel him practically vibrating by her side. There is a very, very brief brush of hands before he rushes up to his apartment to get changed and it leaves her wondering if she has imagined him giving her the sign for "don't wear lipstick." She hopes her mind isn't playing tricks on her and she specially hopes "don't wear lipstick" still means the same thing it did back in 1943. 

- _"I'm most certainly not going out in sport shoes! I had no need for them in the front and I will absolutely not use them for a walk in the garden"_ , Peggy shoots at an apologetic but amused Pepper, and continues as she sees Steve, looking at her from the door, _"are you wearing sport shoes for our walk?"_

- _"I could never, Peg,"_ he answers, pointing at his dress shoes. _"Nothing but the nicest for you."_

Tony would be lying to himself if he didn't admit he has never in all the years he has known Cap seen him make quite that face. It's a smile so big it breaks his fucking heart (after all, he _does_ have one), and when Pepper brings up that very moment in the evening, just before they go to sleep, there are tears in her eyes as she says _"how can we do that to him, Tony, if we figure it out and she has to be sent back?"_ , and all he can offer for an answer is to hug her to him as tight as he possibly can. 

Steve looks so dapper and absolutely delightful Peggy briefly considers punching a couple of those security cameras for a few minutes of privacy, preferably against a wall. The way shirts seem to be fitted in this century isn't really helping. In the lift, on their way down, she's aware they look at each other in ways that would have the Howlies chuckling, and Steve blushing, and herself giving Gabe and Dernier a piece of her mind because her French is good enough to understand what they are whispering about, thank you very much. They stroll arm in arm around the gardens and Peggy realises how much she has missed being outside. Steve guides her through the different parts of the garden, and points at areas of the Compound explaining what happens where, and he almost gives her a heart attack when he suddenly pulls her by the arm and corners her behind a column in what looks like a garage. He rests his right forearm above her head.

\- _"Sorry for the fright"_ , he smiles awkwardly, _"it's just... blind spot,"_ he shrugs. He continues blabbing, because of course Steve would, _"not that I think we need to hide from anyone or ask for permission. It's just... It's just..."_

Peggy has to take matters in her own hands if she doesn't want to waste their time in a perfectly fine place to smooch. He pulls him by the collar and kisses him until she's breathless in the most pleasant form of breathlessness she has experienced in the last days. 

\- _"It's just it's none of their bloody business. If they want to watch people kissing, they should go to the pictures,"_ she finishes his sentence. 

Maybe because they know for a fact they have very little time before they need to show up on camera somewhere or else it will take Tony 10 seconds to lead a search party under the suspicion of kidnapping, things admitedly get a little bit out of hand. It's all fine and dandy between two consenting adults, but it's not ideal to be in the middle of a very passionate kiss with hands roaming under clothes and open your eyes to a wide-eyed adolescent staring.

\- _"Steve! There's a child!"_

Steve turns around, brushing a hand over his face.

\- _"Peter, for the love of god, what are you doing here?"_

\- _"I was trying to catch a Mewtwo on Pokemon Go, and the map says there's one here, Mr. Rogers... Captain Rogers... Mr. Captain... Sir?,"_ the kid stumbles upon his words.

\- _"Is this child yours, Steve?"_ , Peggy wonders out loud.

\- _"NO! Why?"_ , Steve turns back to her.

\- _"I don't know, darling, he doesn't look like you, but he does sound an awful lot like you."_

They have a short conversation about the value of discretion with Peter which they hope is didactic and only mildly intimidating and go back to the garden in front of the main building in the Compound to sit at a bench by the beds of roses. 

\- _"What do you make of Shuri?"_ , Steve asks her. They've been avoiding the topic the whole time.

\- _"Isn't she very young?"_

\- " _She's twenty-two and she was a child prodigy. Believe me, I know how Bucky was before she found the way to help him. You're in good hands. And you yourself were younger when you joined the war effort, huh?"_

\- _"Not very young to be an accomplished professional, Steven, don't be daft. I meant very young to be sweet on Barnes."_ He looks shocked, and then annoyed, and finally slightly unsettled. _"You two still don't know a thing about women, do you?"_ , she shakes her head and gets a hold of his hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoy it and the Shuri having a crush thing doesn't bother anyone. If it helps, it's more of an anecdote than something of actual importance in the story.


	6. Chapter 6

Shuri locks eyes with Bucky long enough for him to mouth _"We were right"_ as the tests they throw at Peggy the moment she sets foot in the guard show consistent and unmistakable improvements in her vitals. She discretely raises an eyebrow at him, trying to hide her smugness. Is it bad that she enjoys Tony Stark being proven wrong every now and again? She doesn't think so. Not that she can boast much when none of the algorithms she has applied to the data collected in the morning is showing any light on the case. There's not a thing so far that strikes her as revealing or unexpected in anything happening in Peggy's brain.

She tries to figure out what new algorithm she can possibly run while hearing them three chatter in the background. They talk about Tangled - Shuri finds it amusing that Peggy shares the guys' fascination for 21st century animation - and how Flynn and Rapunzel remind Bucky of Steve and Peggy during the war. It starts a series of wartime anecdotes, one after the other, that Shuri finds endearing and soothing, a story she almost feels a part of.

For many, many months, as Bucky's recovery went by, they spent hours on end in her laboratory talking about his life, going in circles around the areas of his memory that had been tainted by Hydra. Sargeant Barnes wasn't a computer or a machine, he was a human being with memories, and feelings, and trauma that felt too much for anyone to bear; it wasn't enough to extract the trigger words from his mind, they had to make sure everything around the place where they had been was restored, safe, and healed. Sometimes they would laugh and laugh - those were the memories from his childhood in Brooklyn or silly stories of boring days with the rest of the Commandos - sometimes he would get defensive and sullen when he didn't want to talk about the issue - for all his eyerolling about younger generations thinking sex had been invented in the 60s, he just refused point blank to talk about anything in the vicinity of it, and how was it Shuri's fault that a couple of his trigger words happened to be attached to certain moments? Sometimes he would cry like a child, trying to utter words that were buried so deep inside his chest it physically hurt to get them out - those were the times he had to talk about his poor mother, who had two children and lived to mourn three, with Steve being one of her kids in everything but name, and Bucky's younger sister dying during childbirth when she was only 22, which he had learned while trying to recover his memories on the run from Hydra. Shuri would hold his hand while he talked, and try to adjust to his need to say more or less depending on the day, and lay awake at night feeling guilty, and she would make sure the kids from the village **did** go and bother him in the morning; they made him smile more than anyone else in Wakanda could. 

Peggy Carter straight from the 40s, even if sickly and weak, and not fully herself, seemed to have peeled a whole layer in both Bucky Barnes and Steve Rogers, showing a version of them Shuri had never seen before. She can't help noticing this Bucky is a lot like the person he remembers himself being before Hydra destroyed him and made him into something else. As for Cap, Shuri can't say she's ever disliked him, but he's always been too serious, and grave, and difficult to reconcile with the Steve in Bucky's stories. If Shuri had ever been tempted to crack a joke about how stuffy he could be, it was because of Ramonda that she never put it into words. Her mother seemed to have found a kindred spirit in Steve Rogers, both of them mourning the loves of their lives. Even though they didn't talk much and sometimes they wouldn't even see each other, every time he had passed through Wakanda to check on Bucky's recovery, the Queen Mother would make sure he got the best food, the most comfortable bed, the quietest room. _"Peace does well to a troubled soul"_ , she would say. It's not just that he smiles a lot more with Peggy by his side, not only the way he looks at her, so absolutely loved up one feels almost like an intruder... it's a sort of light from within that highlights the very best of him and makes you see how incredibly special he must have been as a young man, even before Project Rebirth chose him. 

She can hear conversation slowing down, and Bucky's eyes soon find hers, just slightly alarmed. Peggy's all too quiet and a lot paler than a few hours before. Her temperature is within normal parameters, but her blood pressure and oxygen saturation levels are significantly worse than the day before. It doesn't take long to make things better, but the next time Shuri looks at Steve Rogers' face, he has all the weight in the world on him again. 

* * *

After everyone's gone to sleep, Steve finishes brushing his teeth, and walks towards her. He knows what it feels like. To be young and feel like there are so many things you would like to do, and your body failing you, refusing to cooperate, making you angry and frustrated with life and with yourself. She's in the lowest spirits she's been since arriving in the 21st century and he feels a terrible person for being ecstatic she's there with him, even given the circumstances. When he reaches the bed, he switches off the lights and mumbles _"going under."_ There's a soft chuckle and her hand lifting the cover and, when he has her in his arms, he whispers in her ear:

\- _"I just need a cuddle, don't be getting any ideas."_

\- _"It wasn't me getting ideas in the blind spot from the cameras. Well, at least not at first",_ she purrs against his hair.

It had been a long, long time, but his body seemed to remember Peggy like they had been together the day before. They had started kissing and his hands had gotten their own ideas. Had she worn a skirt or dress, he would have probably kept it midly improper, hand up her leg, not too far. She had unfortunately chosen Natasha-inspired black leggins and an oversized sweater that had left his hands with other very appealing options. In hindsight, his shock had been ridiculous, it really had; after all Peggy had obviously been given modern-day clothing, so there was no reason for him to be surprised at what was under it.

- _"Look, I wasn't expecting a modern-day bra, and it got a bit out of hand. It was just as well the kid interrupted."_

- _"I wasn't complaining, darling,"_ she says softly, _"only finding it a tad unfair that you know what modern female underwear is like and I have no idea about its male version."_

He almost laughs when Peggy palms his ass through his underpants -lights on are a no-go and, to be fair, Steve hasn't seen Peggy's bra either -, makes a soft noise and declares _"huh, that's different"_ and, when he drags himself back on top of the covers before being tempted to do something stupid, he is glad he's not the one whose heart rate is visible at all times. 

* * *

Shuri isn't talking much, which is a bad sign, and she hasn't eaten half of her French fries, which is even worse. By Bucky's calculations, she should be eating his by now. Bucky wants to say it's not their fault. She was alright after being outside, she really was, it was hours before things took a turn for the worse, so it can't have been the walk. But if Shuri wanted to discuss the issue, they would be doing it now, so he tries to distract her.

\- _"I used to be jealous, you know?"_

Shuri takes her eyes off the food she's been moving around for a good ten minutes.

- _"Not because I wanted to get with Peggy or anything,"_ he clarifies, _"but I wanted what he had... Fuck, all the Commandos wanted what they had. We all got lucky every now and again, but sleeping in tents in the middle of nowhere? You hear every little thing, the kissing and the whispered declarations of love... and we used to tease them all the time mostly because we were friends, but it was also a bit because we were all a little jealous. Some asshole friends we were."_ He winks at her just as she grabs his hot sauce for herself. 

Good. They'll be back on track tomorrow. 


End file.
